This week’s object, a ship’s passport relating to an American whaler, features the signature of American President Abraham Lincoln. A little research into the ship in question, Jireh Swift, opens up a myriad of stories of shipbuilders, whalers and the American Civil War – and somehow a connection to Australia.

Imagine you are a young woman. You are about to leave your family and your home and embark on a long voyage to a strange country to settle with your fiancé, who you have not seen for five years. This is Lina Cesarin’s story.

When a US naval contingent visited Australia as part of a world tour in 1908, the celebrations and events that surrounded the fleet’s arrival generated enormous amounts of ephemera and souvenirs, some quirky – all patriotic.

At the wharves of the Australian National Maritime Museum sits a small unassuming Japanese fishing vessel. Next to the destroyer HMAS Vampire and the submarine HMAS Onslow, the craft looks even less impressive. However it certainly deserves its place as a historic vessel, as a symbol of one of Australia’s most daring wartime undercover operations and as a reminder of an ill-fated and tragic sequel.

The famous image of ‘Rosie the Riveter’ has been imprinted onto our minds, arm muscles exposed with the words ‘We Can do it!’ emblazoned above her. Since her first appearance in 1943, she has morphed into a symbol for the feminist movement.

This broadsheet newsprint tells the tragic tale of a convict’s wife who was sent to the Bedlam asylum in London after murdering a crew member of the shipwrecked vessel Flora. The ship was wrecked in 1832 en route from Australia, however the truth at the heart of this tale of murder and madness is a little harder to find…

You may have heard of Bennelong, the famous Aboriginal man who befriended Governor Arthur Phillip and accompanied him to England in 1792. Fewer people, however, have heard of Gnung-a Gnung-a Mur-re-mur-gan, who became the first Aboriginal Australian in written history to visit America in 1793.

This cabin bed would have been used by a well-to-do passenger travelling to Australia during the 19th century. Many wealthy passengers would supply their own furniture for the journey and fit out their own cabin.

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner we take a look at a particularly lovely hand painted envelope from the museum’s naval history collection. A letter was sent by Stoker R Boland to his wife during World War II. Nothing unusual about that, is there?